THE Israeli military says that it is looking into whether Hamas’s top leader Yahya Sinwar was killed in a military operation in Gaza.

The military said in a statement today that three Palestinian fighters were killed during operations in Gaza, without elaborating.

It said the identities of the three were so far not confirmed, but it was “checking the possibility” that one of the three was Mr Sinwar.

Mr Sinwar was one of the chief architects of Hamas’s attack on Israel on October 7 2023. He was chosen as the group’s top leader following the assassination of Ismael Haniyeh in July in an apparent Israeli strike in the Iranian capital Tehran.

An Israeli strike on a school sheltering displaced civilians in northern Gaza on Thursday killed at least 15 people, including five children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.

The Israeli military said that the strike targeted dozens of Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants who had gathered at the Abu Hussein school in Jabaliya, an urban refugee camp in northern Gaza.

Fares Abu Hamza, head of the ministry’s local emergency unit, said dozens of people were also wounded in the attack. He said the nearby Kamal Adwan Hospital was struggling to treat the casualties.

“Many women and children are in critical condition,” he said.

This comes after leading United Nations humanitarian official Joyce Myusa accused Israel on Wednesday of blocking the delivery of desperately needed aid to Gaza.

Ms Myusa told an emergency meeting of the UN security council that there is barely any food left in northern Gaza. 

Israel’s UN ambassador Danny Danon insisted that his country’s humanitarian effort remains “as comprehensive as ever” and accused the international community of missing the real issue — which he said was Hamas’s hijacking of aid shipments while fellow Palestinians suffer.

Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian UN ambassador, accused Israel of besieging, bombing and starving 400,000 Palestinians in northern Gaza.

“These are crimes. This is genocide. They must be stopped and they must be stopped now,” he said.